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Without saying too much about myself, one thing you may notice about me (or most food bloggers in general) is that I (we) crave variety, in what we make, what we eat. I especially like to add variety in my lunches. I work over 20 minutes from home, so most meals are spent in my office. While I eat my share of PB&J sandwiches or leftovers from a previous meal, variety is a big part of keeping me interested in bringing lunch.

I saw this idea for a chickpea salad sandwich and the recipe for chickpea salad on a blog that had been referenced on a Brit+Co post, and determined to make it this last week.

The concept is a vegetarian/vegan version of a chicken salad or egg salad. It's really good, light, and refreshing. It also only takes minutes to make, which is perfect for my busy schedule.

Chopping celery is easy: Start by slicing the stalks lengthwise in half, thirds or quarters (depending on the size of the stalk). Then chop into smaller bits.

So you make this chickpea salad, which can be enjoyed on a bed of greens, with pita chips or Pretzel Thins, and probably even stuffed into a celery stalk. This particular blogger made it into a sandwich, and I decided to make mine into a wrap. There are several possibilities which allow for just a little variety stretched out into several meals.

Drain and rinse your chickpeas, place in medium size bowl and roughly mash with a fork, potato masher or pastry blender. Add the remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Add more hummus if you like it creamier and taste for seasoning.

Store leftovers in an air-tight container in the fridge for up to a week.

On a tortilla shell, layer the spinach or other greens, avocado, the chickpea salad, and the tomatoes. Wrap like you would a burrito- fold up one or two opposite "ends" of the circle and then fold the other ends/flaps over it the folded parts/sides and the filling.

So the first time we made grilled pizza, it went pretty terribly wrong. We had pre-assembled the entire pizza. Our crust was cooked way before the ingredients were melted, and began to burn badly on the bottom and there were huge bubbles in the crust. The brightest spot of that whole thing was the homemade sauce.

It would be another couple years before we would try the whole grilled pizza thing again. Recently I watched an episode of one of Bobby Flay's shows and he was grilling pizza. Then I saw a lot of Pinterest pins about grilled pizza. I read a few blog posts, and determined to try again. I found this recipe for pizza dough good for grilling and decided to try it.

The key to this one is organization. Get your sauce, ingredients, and dough into place. Note the mise-en-place above.

We decided to use a pizza stone on the grill, and preheat it so the dough wouldn't burn as quickly (direct contact with the flame made it burn quickly), and also to give additional time for the toppings to melt well on the crust. We cooked the pizza in two stages- first, the stone was removed from the grate (oven mitts needed here) and we cooked the crust, flipping it after about 30 seconds to 1 minute in to cook both sides. The crust was removed and placed on a cooling rack to keep it crisp. We then replaced the pizza stone back to the grill and assembled the pizza- sauce, toppings.

Then we grilled the whole thing until the cheese was melted, which only takes a few minutes.

Prepare your dough by shaping into a flat disc- keep it small-ish, around 10 inches in diameter. I prefer extra thin crust so make it as thin as possible, but that's up to you. If you use the recipe I mentioned above, you will probably get 3-4 small pizzas. We made 3 pizzas and cheesy bread. Delish! Also, get your sauce and toppings together on a tray so that you can quickly assemble the pizzas.

Remove the preheated stone to a heat-proof surface and grill the dough, about 3 minutes total, flipping halfway through. Remove to a cooling rack. Replace the stone onto the grill. Assemble the pizza and place it on the pizza stone. Grill, covered, 2-3 minutes or until the cheese is melted and it looks perfect.

Let cool for a minute before cutting. Enjoy!

A Couple Pizza Ideas
Slather the crust with pesto. Top with mushrooms, mozzarella, and parmesan cheeses. Grill, and after removing or toward the end, add halved grape tomatoes.

Top the crust with regular pizza sauce. Top with onion, bell pepper, zucchini, and cheese.

Brush a crust with olive oil and top with cheeses. Grill until cheese melts and slice into strips for cheese sticks.

I found the original recipe for today's post on Pinterest and fell for its visual appeal. I am a sucker for well photographed food. The colors and textures just burst off the screen and demanded to be made, and finally I got around to making it.

Instead of making the recipe as is, I adapted it to suit mine and Drew's tastes, and I wanted to simplify it. We both really enjoyed it, but if you want it to be a light meal rather than a side, I would encourage you to make double the amount, which would feed 2-3 people, or serve it with pita toasts or something.

This comes together quickly and easily, and if you use canned chickpeas or ones you prepared earlier in the week, there's no cooking, which translates into keeping your house cool enough to live in without turning your power bill into an all consuming monster.

In a medium to large bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper with a whisk or fork. Add all other ingredients and stir to mix and coat with the dressing. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes prior to serving.

Wow. It's been almost a full month since my last recipe share with you. If you're returning to read, thank you! We had family visit the middle-end of June, and when my routine is thrown off (a very welcome throwing off, but still a major routine deviation), I have a hard time getting my routine back fully. Sure, I return to work and teaching Zumba classes, but it takes a while to get back into the groove of cooking, cleaning, blogging, and anything else.

Anyway, about this meal- I haven't shared garden pictures with you this year, but we added squash and zucchini to our garden for the first time, and they've done great! When our family was in town, it was nice that we were able to fry so much squash for everyone to enjoy as much as they wanted.

Decided to use the grill pan instead of the grill- just for convenience reasons

I have tried a couple recipes to use up zucchini and have enjoyed every one of them. This particular one came from a search I did for pasta recipes that contained zucchini and ricotta. Wouldn't you know that the very recipe was sitting in one of my old issues of Everyday Food? I continue to return to these little gems for simple, delicious meals.

Zucchini is grilled and chopped up, and then tossed with corn, ricotta, herbs, and pasta for a decently quick and tasty meal. Even Drew liked it, and he's usually none too excited about pasta recipes. It also makes a ton. I'm pretty sure we got something like 6-8 servings out of this recipe.

Prepare zucchini: using a sharp knife or mandolin, slice the zucchini lengthwise into long, thin slices. Grill on outdoor grill or grill pan over med-high heat, lightly oiling the zucchini and sprinkling with salt and pepper prior to grilling. Flip when the bottom side has nice grill marks. Remove from heat when zucchini are softened and both sides are lightly charred. Set aside to cool, and then chop into 1/2 inch pieces.

In a large bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup pasta water, ricotta, and Parmesan. Add pasta mixture, zucchini, basil, and dill and toss to combine. Add more pasta water if necessary to create a light sauce that coats pasta. Season with salt and pepper and top with more basil and Parmesan.

Notes

I used a mixture of cellentani and rigatoni pastas to use up what I had in my pantry. Any shorter pasta will do.

I had fresh basil from my garden and didn't use dill at all.

I had some boiled corn left over from another meal, so instead of boiling it, I just sliced it off the cob and used it that way. You could also use frozen corn.